Sex, AIDS, Migration, and Prostitution: Human Trafficking in the Caribbean Catherine Benoît

Connecticut College Digital Commons @ Connecticut College Anthropology Faculty Publications Anthropology Department 1-1-1999 Sex, AIDS, Migration, and Prostitution: Human Trafficking in the Caribbean Catherine Benoît Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.conncoll.edu/anthrofacpub Part of the Anthropology Commons, and the Caribbean Languages and Societies Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Anthropology Department at Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Anthropology Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Connecticut College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author. C. Benoît Sex, AIDS, migration, and prostitution : human trafficking in the Caribbean Study of sexual tourism in Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, where prostitution is a widespread reality. Author argues that on this island where rapid economic development is based on the tourist industry and on offshore financial services, sexual relationships are determined by geopolitical and financial (neoliberal) interests that go beyond sexuality per se. She focuses on the precarious situation of the foreign prostitutes who have no working papers. In: New West Indian Guide/ Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 73 (1999), no: 3/4, Leiden, 27-42 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com02/28/2019 07:29:22PM via Connecticut College CATHERINE BENOIT SEX, AIDS, MIGRATION, AND PROSTITUTION: HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN THE CARIBBEAN In every society, sexuality is set in the service of several realities - economic, political, etc. - which have nothing to do directly with sexuality or with the sexes (Godelier 1995:117). "Sea, Sun, and Sex." These three words aptly summarize the expectations of tourists coming to the Caribbean as sexual tourism has become an impor- tant element in the economic development of certain countries. Indeed, Europeans have bypassed Southeast Asia because of the AIDS epidemic, and sexual tourism has increased in the Caribbean, making the Dominican Republic one of the world's centers. While we know that sexual tourism creates a demand for the prostitution of women, children, and for homosexual men, we are less familiar with the form of prostitution set in the service of a country's internal demands. This article examines sexual tourism in Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten, where prostitution is a widespread reality.1 Most studies on this topic emphasize the psychological frailties of the women who devote themselves to the "commerce of sex."2 This article, however, seeks to demonstrate that on this island where rapid economic development is based on the tourist industry and on tax havens (offshore 1. Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten is a binational Caribbean island. Saint-Martin is a com- mune of Guadeloupe, a French Departement d'Outre-Mer. Sint-Maarten is part of the Netherlands Antilles. 2. The use of terms such as sexual "commerce" and "work" can be confusing since they could imply that prostitution is an economic activity like any other (see Louis 1997). I do use these terms, but consider the human body as unalienable and not to be considered an object for commerce. New West Indian Guide I Nieuwe West-Indische Gids vol. 73 no. 3&4 (1999): 27-42 Downloaded from Brill.com02/28/2019 07:29:22PM via Connecticut College 28 CATHERINE BENOIT services), sexual relationships are determined by geopolitical and financial interests that go beyond sexuality per se. THE FIELD, THE OBSERVATIONS, THE POSSIBLE QUESTIONS My research project on the therapeutic itineraries of AIDS victims reveals the extent to which different forms of prostitution are present in Saint- Martin/Sint Maarten. In an epidemiological context where AIDS is trans- mitted primarily through heterosexual contact,3 some of the men whose health strategies I was examining said that they believed they had been contaminated after unprotected sexual relations with prostitutes.4 After several interviews, however, it became clear that although they knew that they were HIV positive, some of these men nonetheless continued to seek out prostitutes without using condoms. I decided to visit the brothels to investigate the use of condoms, accom- panied by men who both knew the brothels and who were Spanish speakers. Since I do not speak Spanish and since most of the prostitutes are Spanish speakers, this was a necessity. By day, we visited bars, telling the managers or barmen that we wanted to inform the prostitutes about an AIDS detection center on the French side of the island which was free and where their anonymity would be respected. By night, we went to bars to have a drink and to talk with the prostitutes known to the men who were accompanying me. These encounters allowed me to gauge the difficulty of working with an interpreter: it was hard to carry out interviews without taking into consideration the interpreter's imagination and fantasies. Often, impassioned by my study, the men overstepped their roles, and tried to lead the interviews themselves. I observed that this study of prostitution let some of them, momentarily at least, drop their defense mechanisms with regard to sexuality, prostitution, and sexual stereotypes associated with ethnic stereotypes. On his first visit to a brothel, one of these men — who had been 3. In August 1995 on Saint-Martin, according to files in the French hospital that could be consulted, of the 203 HIV positive cases and 68 adult AIDS cases that had been counted, only one patient, a young Frenchman who had been contaminated in France, had contracted AIDS intravenously. Homosexual transmission, at that date, was attrib- uted to bisexual men. 4. The ACSAG (Analysis of sexual behavior in the Antilles and in Guyana) study, an extension of the ACSF (Analysis of sexual behavior in France) study in French overseas departments in the American Hemisphere established the importance of prostitution in French Guiana and Guadeloupe. In the latter, men older than forty-five go to prostitutes three to four times more often than men in metropolitan France. In French Guiana, over- all, men go to prostitutes seven times more often than in metropolitan France (Giraud 1995). Downloaded from Brill.com02/28/2019 07:29:22PM via Connecticut College SEX, AIDS, MIGRATION, AND PROSTITUTION 29 asked when he was seen with me, why he had come with his wife or wheth- er I was an immigration inspector - took it into his head to "return there to help those women get themselves out of those places."5 Another quickly refused to see me again and asked his family not to see me. I learned much later that ever since our trips to the bars, he was getting preferential treatment - free tricks! Another turned out to be the owner of a brothel in the Dominican Republic where "he tried out all the girls before hiring them." In the Caribbean, brothels are areas of male socialization. Men can meet simply to have a drink, or to watch a show without necessarily looking for a woman. On a small island like Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten it is impossible to remain anonymous. The men with whom I was working were first-time visitors to these brothels and attempted to remain anonymous, yet at the same time they wanted to know which island notables were regulars in these houses. When, in the evening, we went to these places, my male com- panions were careful about changing their car or asked me to take mine in order not to be recognized. When we parked in the brothel parking lots, they inevitably recognized the cars of certain island notables and insisted on staying in the bar in order to see them come out of their rooms! Occasionally, we were even hassled by their employees at the entrance, but once they understood who I was, they were delighted to answer my questions. Only the men accompanying me were naive enough to ask how the employees, who spoke only Creole or French, could converse with the Spanish-speaking women. What kind of discourse should be established between a female anthro- pologist, prostitutes, and clients? What kinds of observations can be made? Michel Bozon (1995) has explicitly demonstrated the difficulties of "observing the unobservable" concerning sexual practices. It is difficult to speak about personal sexual activity, whereas closed questionnaires lend themselves better to these issues. George Devereux, in his De I'angoisse a la methode, says quite clearly that an interview about sexuality, even if it is scientific, is, in and of itself, a form of sexual interaction.6 While doing my field work, I received phone calls, offers of trips, and invitations to night- clubs from men who were already contaminated, and whom I had spoken about their sexual activity. This had not occurred during the interviews that were more oriented towards treatment strategies, as if addressing the issue elicited a new desire for life. Getting a sense of "reality" when it comes to sexuality, more than for any other area, requires analyzing the interaction between interviewer and interviewee, and the transference and counter-transference that occurs during the interviews. The information that I gathered, even though on as tech- 5. The quotations refer to my interlocutors' remarks. 6. See Spira, Bajos & ACSF 1993. Downloaded from Brill.com02/28/2019 07:29:22PM via Connecticut College 30 CATHERINE BENOIT nical an issue as the use of condoms, seemed to me to require careful inter- pretation if anything

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